Too Close to Home

I could have killed him! But even with the technological advances that allow us to perform a myriad of unbelievable tasks over the phone, murder has yet to be included.

All I could do was register disbelief and dismay at this insane turn of events--very professionally, of course--and schedule a face-to-face meeting for tomorrow morning. Then I would be in a position to kill him!

But I had to be armed. One more quick call set up an eight o'clock meet with the troops tonight. I'd get my orders and my ammunition then.

"Hustle front two times! Left leg up, left arm. Right leg up, right arm. Again! Two-three-four. Two times each. March back eight. POWER! Check pulse. NOW...... times 10. Anyone over one sixty? Good! Keep marching."

Sixteen female bodies – one of them mine – responded to the familiar commands, forming a multi-layered, somewhat ragged chorus line. Short, tall, fat, thin, soft, hard, clumsy, graceful, young, old. A few exhibited in neon Lycra spandex tights and bared midriff tank tops, but most covered with faded sweats, baggy T-shirts and cotton shorts.

Our aerobics class had been meeting at the downtown YWCA at 10th and Charlotte at five o'clock three afternoons a week for the past four months. We've made astonishing progress but still were definitely not ready for even off-off-Broadway.

"Big swing left! Big swing right! March up eight. Add arms. Right arm, right knee up. Left arm, left knee up. Again!"

The tight little drill sergeant continued. Why are all aerobics instructors pert, 5' 1" sprites? High school cheerleaders reincarnated.

I'm hooked on those little endorphins, or whatever they are, zapping around in my 45-year-old body. They just gobble up stress like Pac-Men. And I have so much energy. Better than a fountain of youth.

"All right, Ladies. To the mats. Gloria wants some more work on our inner thighs!"

"I have the worst thighs in the Western Hemisphere!" moaned Gloria Renfro, one of City Realtors' top agents. How, I wondered, can she possibly have any inner thigh problems with four kids in college and that wonderfully romantic husband of hers?

"Kate, do you have time for a bite to eat when we finish? My girls are at their dad's tonight, and Jay has to work late." Karen Perez, at twenty-six, was doing a remarkable job juggling her new real estate career with mothering her six-and eight-year-old daughters and cultivating her relationship with Jay, her upstairs neighbor.

"Sure, a real quick one. I've got a meeting with the Roanoke-Valentine board at eight. Thoreson wants to back out of the contract on the Rush House. I have an appointment with him in the morning, and we need to make sure our ducks are all in a row."

Kenneth Thoreson had been very interested when I had approached him six weeks ago with the offer for the handsome Georgian Revival style residence on Madison. He had operated it as a group home for mentally retarded adults for the past sixteen years. The Roanoke-Valentine Homes Association had received a $150,000 bequest and had been successful in its bid to the Kansas City Historic Foundation for a matching no-interest loan to help purchase and restore one of the formerly grand old homes in the neighborhood.

I entered the picture early in December when Sonia Wattenberg, the association's president, called to see if I'd like to be one of three real estate brokers interviewed to act as their buyer-broker to find and negotiate the purchase for them. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. December, while not totally devoid of people shopping for homes, doesn't run at the same frenetic pace as February and March. I'd have some time I could spend on a project that excited me as well as earned me a very respectable commission.

"Relax. Breathe in through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slowly turn your neck to the right. Back to the front. Now to the left. Chin down. Good job! Have a nice evening!"

And then applause. Why? Are we applauding the instructor? Or are we applauding ourselves for having survived yet another sweaty, arm-waving, leg-lifting, pulse-pumping hour?

Across the steamy shower room Karen called, "Kate! Where are we going to eat – Murphy's Landing or the Phoenix?"

"Let's go to Murphy's. I'm in the mood for a juicy burger even without the onion. And I love their curlicue fries."

"I don't understand you! How can you sweat through an hour of aerobics and then eat all that junk food? They do have great salads, you know."

"A balanced diet is something you can live with forever – or live forever with!" I retorted in my most pontifical voice. "Besides, when I put on my jeans last week, they nearly fell off!

They're the only ones I have left!"

And that was a switch. When I'd had the Midtown property management company five years earlier, jeans were my uniform. Albeit dry-cleaned, straight- legged Chics topped with blazers or silk shirts. Now I'm into a more mature, sophisticated look with, above all, comfort!

"Anne, why don't you join us? Maybe you can help me figure out what Kenneth Thoreson's thinking about on this deal."

I had talked to my friend Anne Lyons, a psychiatric nurse with the Missouri Department of Mental Health, when the Rush House landed on the Association's list of possible properties. "Sure, I'd love to. Just give me a few minutes to dry my hair, and I'll meet you there."

In the five minutes it took me to drive the twelve blocks west across Kansas City's downtown to Eighth and Broadway, I noted again how clean the city is, even this older part of the downtown. And at 6:30, rush-hour had long passed. Most of the thousands who work in the high-rise office towers are already sitting down to dinner at home in the suburbs. A few urbanites enjoy happy hour or the theater or the symphony; a few suburbanites remain for the opening of the annual Flower and Garden Show at Bartle Hall. But for these few stragglers, the streets and sidewalks, parking lots and garages are quiet. Even during the business day, both pedestrian and vehicular traffic is casual and unhurried.